In a computer database system, a database shard is a horizontal partition in a database or search engine of a database system, wherein the database system includes multiple databases servers.
In a conventional operation, brokers may be configured as active/passive pairs, where queues are assigned to a single, active broker. The passive broker then is available upon a failure of the active broker.
However, the storing of every message on a single broker negatively affects system performance during peak loads, while the passive broker remains unused most of the time, resulting in compromises in performance and equipment usage.